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bright orange sky and off this stupid, everyone-talking-at-the-same-time earth? Well, that’s what it’s like on the ride home with Logan. We are flying through and past and over and around, zooming zooming past everything and everyone that does and doesn’t matter. My mom was right to tell me not to get on one of these. I am hooked.
    Poor Mom. She tried.
    By the time we make it to my house, the sun is dipping down into the trees and everything’s turning orange orange orange. Logan stops about two blocks past my house, so my mom doesn’t ground me until college. If my stupid sisters were home they’d torture me for the rest of my life for this, and call me a slut. Mostly because, you know, goose/gander and all that.
    I get off the back of Logan’s moped and expect him to ride off into the sunset but he gets off, too.
    â€œWalk you to your door?”
    â€œWhat?! NO!”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œAre you kidding? My sisters will ambush you.”
    â€œYou have sisters?”
    â€œUch. Yes. Two of ’em. And they’re super-annoying.”
    â€œI have two kid brothers. But they’re kind of cute, actually.”
    â€œOh, I have two brothers. They’re older. They’re not so bad, either. They leave me alone at least.”
    â€œYour sisters are probably just jealous. You know that, right?”
    â€œI don’t know. I just wish they would ignore me or something.”
    The sun’s coming in rays through the trees and I’m terrified someone will see me. Maybe even Stacy Nolan. Now that would be a reversal of fortune.
    â€œYou know what I think?”
    He’s got a sly smile now. I should hurry back but something is making my feet disregard this command from my head.
    â€œI think you’re hard to ignore.”
    â€œ Tsh. What is that supposed to mean?”
    â€œI think you’re beautiful.”
    â€œShut up.”
    He smiles and I am just about to obey that command from my head to get out of Dodge, but then something happens. Something that’s supposed to not happen and is not the reason I stepped on that moped. No way.
    â€œI’m gonna kiss you now and you’re gonna like it.”
    And he does. And I do.
    !
    Right there two blocks from the house, Logan McDonough is officially my first kiss (yes, I know, late bloomer) and I don’t really know how this is supposed to go even though I have seen a lot of movies that could act as reference. But none of that matters now because, essentially, I’m having an out-of-body experience where I can’t believe, can’t believe this is happening but I can’t stop don’t want to stop no way nohow.
    Before I know it, or know which way is up or what year it is, anyway, Logan leans back and smiles at me like he knew it all along and he’s glad I know it now, too.
    He dips his helmet like it’s a cowboy hat.
    â€œHappy trails.”
    And now that helmet is back on his head and now the moped is up and running and he’s halfway down the street and I am left to stand there and wonder what the hell just happened. And I may be just fifteen and don’t know very much, like maybe it’s kind of like I don’t know anything, but I know this—
    I am in serious trouble.

twelve
    P edaling fast fast fast, this is the moment. This is the sky turning from black to purple to pink and now the sun coming up and I am still not fast enough. Not fast enough to change it.
    Pedaling fast fast fast, this is the sun coming up through the trees and there’s nobody, nobody on the streets, nobody on the sidewalks, nobody but me and the light coming off the pavement. Nobody for miles around, the entire universe holding its breath in silence, but in my head a thousand voices, in my head, a chorus, an orchestra, a stadium.
    Pedaling fast fast fast, this is the moment and there has to be a way to change it, there has to be a way to stop the earth from turning, there has